Can a video game improve your posture? Build and tone your muscles? Help you lose weight?

With the release of Wii Fit -- a workout routine disguised as a video game -- Nintendo is betting it can.

Fit is the latest game for the Nintendo Wii, which upended the couch gamer model with a more active, family-friendly experience when it was released in 2006. Unlike most game consoles, Wii lets players use a wireless, one-handed remote that detects movement in three dimensions. In games such as tennis and bowling, the player's arms and body mimic the actual moves on screen.

Fit takes that to the next level with a ''balance board'' that measures the body's weight and center of mass. Players use the board to perform aerobic exercises, strength training and even yoga -- all while trying to keep pace with an avatar on the TV screen. They also get verbal encouragement and feedback on technique. Fit includes more than 40 workouts, from push-ups and lunges to step aerobics, ski jumps and Hula-Hoop. The $90 game, bundled with the board, has been sold out in many stores since its release less than two weeks ago.

While Wii Fit may be one of the most advanced exercise-related games to date, it's not the first. Dance Dance Revolution, a music video game in which players move their feet across a dance pad, stepping in time to song beats, was a hit in arcades and at homes years before Wii's release. And gyms, school fitness programs and rehabilitation centers have increasingly turned to exercise games to train, trim and rehabilitate people.

With that in mind, we tested the Wii Fit on a personal trainer, a group of middle schoolers and a patient going through physical therapy.

Did they break a sweat or was it just another video game? Read on.

8th grade gym class

Nautilus Middle School

Miami Beach

Nautilus students have been using video games to work out for months. It is the only public middle school in Miami-Dade County to have a video-game equipped wellness center. There are flat-screen TVs attached to PlayStation 2 systems with Dance Dance Revolution pads, bike-powered racing video games, treadmills that can hook up to iPods to play nutritional videos, and computers set to MyPyramid.Gov, where students can learn about diet and exercise.

Zach Bradley, 14, tried the yoga, push-ups and soccer head-butt exercises. After about 30 minutes, he had worked up a light sweat. Along with regular gym class, he goes to the video game room two or three times a week to work out, often on Dance Dance Revolution.

Bernard Cohen, 13, tried lunges, skip jump and alpine skiing. ''It's the coolest Wii game I've played,'' he said. ``I don't have any game systems at home because my parents think I'll get addicted, but this one gives you a good workout.''

Bottom line: Kids easily picked up on the Wii and Wii Fit. Jayne Greenberg, director of physical education for Miami-Dade schools, watched, impressed. She hopes to get a Wii for the wellness center soon. Yet, she'll make one change: She won't let kids measure their height, weight or body-mass-index with Wii Fit -- she doesn't want the system to tell any students they're overweight.

''These kids are brought up with technology and the same systems we complain can make kids overweight can be the ones we use to help them exercise,'' she said. ``With the game systems we already have, kids are exercising for an hour and a half and not even realizing it. They are drenched when finished.''

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